


Deconstruction

by signalbeam



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Can't cook, Community: springkink, F/F, Fluff, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-05
Updated: 2009-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-18 19:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signalbeam/pseuds/signalbeam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chie and Yukiko fail at baking cake. And at keeping their relationship a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deconstruction

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the springkink prompt: _November 1 - Persona 4 - Chie/Yukiko - Secret girlfriends - "Chie and Yukiko have been closer these days."_
> 
> One day I'll master the art of writing these two being all... serious business-y. ... One day.

“A cake,” Souji said.

“Yeah,” Chie said, nodding her head. “You know. As a celebration.” And then, to provide a bit of assurance, she said, “Me and Yukiko will make it.”

To Souji’s credit, he didn’t flinch.

“Oh, hell no,” Yosuke said. “I thought you said this would be a _celebration_.”

“It’s not like anyone got hospitalized last time,” Chie said. “And we’ll invite Nanako-chan, too.”

“Collateral,” said Souji, whatever that meant. A tense moment passed, in which Chie was sure that he and Yosuke were having a telepathic conversation. With their brains.

“All right,” Yosuke conceded. “Fine. You guys can have your cake. Just make sure you eat it, okay?”

“It’s going to be _fine_. I think.”

“You _think_ —”

“We’ll stop by your house later to do a quick taste test before going to Kanji-kun’s house,” Souji said, putting his hand on Yosuke’s shoulder. Then he said, “You ‘think’?”

“We’re still working out some technical issues.”

“You couldn’t work them out a little earlier?” Yosuke said.

“We were busy.”

“Busy doing what, making out in—” Souji stepped on Yosuke’s foot. “Ow!”

 

\---

 

“You know something?” Chie said, poking the coffee machine with a frown. “Yosuke won’t stop acting like a jerk.”

Yukiko stopped chopping carrots long enough to look up, brow furrowed and knife hovering perilously over her thumb. “Yosuke-kun?” The knife came down on a carrot. “You didn’t hurt him too badly, did you?”

“It was just _one_ kick.” The coffee machine made a weird noise, like it was coughing up dust. Well, no wonder: she had forgotten to add the water. Chie filled up the pot, and stuck it back into the machine. More weird, coughing noise. What was _wrong_ with this thing? She had the water in the pot, so why wasn’t the coffee coming out? “Um, well, you don’t think we’re—obvious, do you?”

“Um… I guess not?” Vague and distant. It wasn’t like Yukiko was an authority on picking up subliminal messages, anyway. She probably thought Chie was talking about the cake.

If Chie really wanted an answer, she should have asked Souji, except it’d be asking _Souji_ , and that would be a little… What would she even ask? ‘Hi, do you think we’ve gotten closer lately? Do I seem gayer than usual? Do you want to have a heart-to-heart discussion about my awkward sexual tension?’

Not to say that they weren’t close before, only that they were closer now. Things were—different. Different in a way that was sometimes a little uncomfortable, and sometimes kind of nice. Uncomfortable in that she still _did_ things to hurt Yukiko, things they both saw, but couldn’t bring themselves to call out. Uncomfortable in that every few Sundays, Yukiko would get on a train to Okina, and turn off her cell, and not call Chie until she got back.

That always left a sour taste in Chie’s mouth. See, one of the bigger drawbacks about being Chie Satonaka, Yukiko Amagi’s best friend, was that Yukiko would still be the heir of the Amagi inn without Chie, but without Yukiko, Chie would be Chie Satonaka, nobody extraordinaire. What had changed, anyway? She was still Yukiko’s best friend, she still thought of herself in those terms, and Yukiko thought of herself as the heir of the Amagi inn. Chie was Yukiko's ‘prince’. She didn’t even know what being a prince meant, and was half sure that she only wanted to be a prince because Yukiko needed her to be one. And if she was a prince, then shouldn't she have a cravat or something?

“ _Are_ we... 'obvious'?” Yukiko asked.

“Well…” Chie wrinkled her nose. She had no idea. “Souji-kun asked me how things were going between the two of us a few days ago, so I guess he might know something? And didn’t Kanji-kun ask you if you came out of the closet after we saved him from the dungeon?”

“It’s not like _that_ counts,” Yukiko said quickly. The knife came down, loudly, on the counter. Hopefully that wouldn’t leave a mark. Chie’s mother was getting annoyed with the mess they left in the kitchen when they tried to cook. “We weren’t even seeing each other then. I mean—we were, but not… Seeing each other. Except we’re… in a different way?”

“Way different,” Chie said. Only not that different at all, so she wasn’t sure what she was saying or why she was saying it.

Yukiko was grating the sliced carrot pieces, making frustrated, little noises when her fingers bumped against the cheese grater. “Is the coffee almost done?” she asked.

“Almost,” Chie lied, because “done” meant coffee was coming out, and all she had was little flecks of powder in half a liter of lukewarm water. She opened up the coffee machine, scooped out some of the instant coffee powder, and stirred it into the water. Now it looked like watery hot chocolate. Okay, so she sucked at this. But it wasn’t like most normal people would cut up carrots into tiny little pentagons before grating them, either. She gave up on the coffee, and went over to Yukiko. “Any luck with the carrots?”

“Yes,” Yukiko said. “I’m making a lot of progress.” Scrape, scrape. “Ow.”

“Uh- _huh_.”

“It’s not that bad,” Yukiko said, which made Chie grin. Yukiko swatted Chie's shoulder lightly. “I told you that you didn’t need to put instant coffee in the coffee machine.”

“Yeah, but I bet putting it through the machine will make it taste better.”

“But we’re making a carrot coffee cake, so…”

“Last time we tried, you said we should add jalapeños, and we both know how _that_ turned out.”

“P—phhaa, what does that have to do with…”

“Okay, look,” Chie started, half annoyed and half ready to start giggling herself. She stopped when she noticed that Yukiko wasn’t laughing anymore, and that everything was quiet around them, even that blasted coffee machine. Yukiko was smiling a little, her mouth twisting up into a half-smile, hair falling over her shoulders, and a shine in her eyes, like she was waiting for something to happen. There was a long, breathless moment where Chie was trapped between moving and not moving. Something was stirring inside her, a sudden affection that made her bite her lip in anticipation—

When Yukiko kissed her, there was a bubbly, little laugh between their lips, one that was not one or the other’s alone. She pulled Yukiko a little closer, tugging Yukiko’s hands away from the cheese grater and—and the dog was barking, and then the doorbell rang.

Chie let out a frustrated, little groan.

“That’s probably Souji-kun,” Yukiko said. She ignored that in favor of kissing Chie again.

“The door—They’re our _friends_.”

“So am I,” Yukiko pointed out, and emphasized that by unzipping Chie’s tracksuit and kissing Chie’s neck. Because friends did that kind of thing all the time. Or at least, _Yukiko’s_ version of friends did. Which meant that Chie’s jealous streak was about to start kicking into full drive, if it weren’t overridden by the sudden, blanking arousal swirling in the bottom of her stomach.

“If that’s your definition of friends,” Chie started, and then yelped when one of Yukiko’s hands slipped under her shirt. There was a fast, hot feeling rushing wherever Yukiko touched her, a long, lingering sensation that made her bite her tongue and try not to moan too loudly. She could smell the shampoo Yukiko used, smell the faint smell of soap still lingering on Yukiko’s skin. All she could see was a wave of black hair that had only become longer with the years. She wanted to keep it, all of it, for herself. Yukiko was something precious that she wanted to keep safe, but didn’t need to protect—which was all kinds of confusing, but made sense in a weird way, just like how she didn’t really get the prince thing, and she didn’t really think of herself as being a prince, either, but she wanted to be one. And maybe if things had changed and become a little uglier and rougher around the edges, it had been for the best.

Chie wanted more of it: more of the same, and more of this new kind of knowing and friendship and everything that came with it. Wanted everything and still wanted more. When Yukiko said, “ _Chie_ ,” Chie wanted so badly to reach up and take that, too. And then, thinking better of it, let Yukiko keep it.

 

\---

 

“They’re never going to answer, are they?” Yosuke said. He pressed the doorbell again, just to be sure.

“Nope,” Souji said. He was reading a cookbook.

Yosuke rubbed his nose and said, “Dude, that’s gay.”

“All right, Yosuke.”

The first thing Yosuke wanted to say was, “That’s not what your mother said,” except “your mother” jokes weren’t even funny anymore, and… and he didn’t really care about the gay thing, anyway. He sat on the steps of the Satonaka’s house, and looked up at the sky. If he stared hard enough, he could ignore how two of his closest female friends were insisting on practicing kicks in Chie’s room instead of answering the door. At least, he hoped they were practicing kicks. Sure didn’t sound like it.

“They’re together, aren’t they?”

“Sounds like it.”

“Worst kept secret _ever._ ”

Souji turned the page and said, “At least they aren’t making cake.”


End file.
